


Ever After

by ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, F/M, Set around Epilogue, mentions of hijacking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 15:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6290443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no happily ever after for Katniss and Peeta, but there's an after. Sometimes,  it's happy; other times, however, are like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Old inbox prompt fill from a hundred years ago.

Katniss barrels through the woods, bow in hand and oblivious to the noise she is making. 

There’s no fence anymore, but not many people brave the forest and she can be alone there. She has to get away, detach from _it_ , from _them_ , from _him._  He knows she doesn’t mean it maliciously; it still hurts him, though, to hear her explain it away.

_“Your daddy can’t come in right now, little duck.”_

_“Why, Mommy?”_

_“He doesn’t feel good right now.”_

_“What’s wrong with Daddy?”_

_“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”_

Nothing hurts Peeta more than knowing he can’t be around his own children when things get bad, but they made an agreement years ago when they decided they would have them that it would be this way. That Katniss would be on hijacking lookout until their kids were old enough to understand what is happening. Why their father sometimes grips the backs of chairs and, on really bad days, throws them and screams at Mommy.

Katniss stops running and throws down her bow, stabbing her fingers through her hair until her ponytail loosens and falls out. She loves Peeta. More than anyone else in the entire world, she loves him. Despite him being hard-wired to hate her and her propensity for being emotionally unavailable.

But there are days like these, when their children are with the kind lady down the street and Peeta is at the bakery and Katniss is hiding in the woods and their house is cold and empty. Both of them are a little cold an empty.

Slowly, but surely, they have filled in the gaps with whatever warmth they are able to carve from each other and the rest with the bright shining light of children who don’t know that the ground they walk on is planted with the ashes of almost everyone they ever knew. And it is enough to remind her that today is just today and tomorrow will be better because Peeta will be better.

And Peeta makes her better.

With a steady, healing breath, she picks up her bow and sedately walks back to town and to the cold, empty house so she can begin to fill it, warm it for when Peeta is ready to return and the children can come back. 


End file.
